[karaterobot]

Yeah, ironic because Blockbuster is what killed off the mom and pop stores it now stands in for in our collective memory of the 90s.

I actually liked our local Blockbuster, and have fond memories of it, but only because it was run by the same employees from the independent video store it drove out of business. I liked that one even better.

[artificial]

This reminds me of smaller bookstores prior to the era of Borders and Barnes and Noble dominance. pours one out

[legitster]

Smaller bookstores are actually doing pretty okay these days: https://www.wbur.org/onpoint/2020/02/18/indie-bookstores-com...

Mostly because Amazon decimated corporate chains, which freed up more market for independent stores.

[ghaff]

Though independents are still a pretty niche business. Around where I am there are certainly far fewer of them than there were before the big chains became dominant.

[legitster]

I don't know. I'm in a pretty redneck county and even here there are dozen independent bookstores.

Most of them are tied to a coffeeshop though. But if you check your local map you might be surprised.

[pessimizer]

Even the article said there were 10-15 bookstores in a place that had 35 of them in the 70s.

[bluedino]

How are they still in business, by the way? It seemed like they were just a Starbucks location with a ton of overhead, I thought we'd seen the last of them when pandemic shut everything down.

I loved B&N by the way, more computer-related books than WaldenBooks, but not as many as Borders.

[munificent]

> How are they still in business, by the way?

They've broadened out into being general "gift stores". My local Barnes and Noble has a large toys section (mostly LEGO and educational stuff), board games, puzzles, music (lots of vinyl), stationery (fancy journals).

It's essentially "stuff introverts like" in a nice space.

[jabroni_salad]

Around the time of the pandemic they implemented a strategic change to have local management arrange the store rather than auctioning shelf placement to publishers like most other retailers do. This has actually made B&N pretty nice to browse compared to a few years ago.

[bombcar]

Because "Starbucks with overhead" is a surprisingly effective business model apparently; though if you go into one you'll notice that there are a lot more chotchkeys for sale near the front of the store (even LEGO lol).

[legitster]

> Blockbuster is what killed off the mom and pop stores

Is there a source for this? Usually, both rise and fall together with consumer demand. When I grew up, Blockbuster was one of a dozen options in town.

As an example, there are more independent coffee shops today than before Starbucks expanded.

[bombcar]

Starbucks grew the "expensive coffee" market, and so independents had a niche to slip into (expensive, but not Starbucks) - Blockbuster did nothing to grow the "rental movie" market, and a given market in an area is roughly limited to the number of houses in said market.

People drink less office/gas station coffee than they used to, and so can drink more Starbucks/independent coffee. The same didn't happen to the mom and pop video rental places (though the ones that survived blockbuster, usually by being in a market too small to support a Blockbuster, often outlived them (the one near me closed a few years ago finally)).

[omar_alt]

I distinctively remember around 1994 two family run stores in the UK town I grew up in disappearing and the reason was the same, Blockbuster.

I didn’t play games much but I recall them also renting out Japanese nintendo games and also sold the necessary cartridge converters to play Starfox.

[ars]

> the reason was the same, Blockbuster.

The "name" of the reason might be Blockbuster, but the actual reason was that Blockbuster had a larger selection. Those mom and pop stores were really small, so if you wanted something else you had to go to Blockbuster anyway, so why bother dealing with more than one store even for the stuff they had? Just get everything at Blockbuster.

It's the same with retail stores - I don't go to the small stores, even if they might have what I want - why should I? I can go to the larger store and get everything and not have to think about it.

[acheron]

Yeah that's how I remember it too. In one town we lived in, we always got videos from the independent place. My main memory of Blockbuster is that one time my parents went there instead, and they gave us the wrong movie, which my sister and I were very disappointed by.

In another town we lived in, the video rental place was a local chain with fewer than 10 locations, maybe just around 5. I don't remember if a Blockbuster even existed locally.

[LegitShady]

the wikipedia article for blockbuster contains a quote/source about this (search it for "mom and pop") but the citation no longer exists due to link rot.

essentially blockbuster operated at larger scales than many small video businesses and so had smaller unit costs while also having more selection.

[causi]

I loved when Blockbuster came to town because it cut the price of rentals by two thirds. I was not a wealthy child and being able to rent a game every few weeks was way better than every couple of months.

[fundad]

How is that ironic? Memories of the 90’s woupd be all about the demise of mom and pop shops and generally flattening the character of US cities and towns (see also Starbucks).

It’s more discomforting than ironic.

[WalterBright]

The local video rental proprietor told me when she was closing up for good was that Netflix destroyed her business.

[mikeocool]

Anecdotally, I recall a brief moment in the late 2000's where the mom and pop shops had a bit of resurgence (or at least a stay on their execution) -- when Netflix DVD's by mail had put most Block Busters out of business, but before every movie was readily available on streaming services.

If it was Friday night, and you'd just sent back your netflix disc -- or you were looking to watch something that wasn't at the top of your queue, the mom and pop video rental place was your only option. At least in NYC, it seemed like this kept those places going a little but longer than anyone would have guessed when Block Buster was still around.

Though once streaming became prevalent they all disappeared pretty quickly.

[rhino369]

NYC probably had more indie rental stores around just because of the population density. In my suburb, Blockbuster had already wiped them out in the 90's.

[Apocryphon]

Feels like even without streaming or even Netflix’s original DVD-by-mail delivery service, Redbox could’ve eaten brick and mortar movie rental stores.

[exmadscientist]

According to a coworker, Redbox/Outerwall had massive management issues, which probably explains why they had so much trouble. He insisted that the corporate culture got significantly better when private equity bought them out, which is a statement I don't recall ever having heard before.

[TedDoesntTalk]

I don't recall Redbox existing, at least in my area, during that time.

[WalterBright]

This was before Netflix streaming, when Netflix was just dvds.

[TedDoesntTalk]

Yeah -- still don't remember Redbox then. I did use Netflix DVDs by mail, too.